I believe that passion and zeal are often stirred by frustrations or concerns, this is what I teach at our church. Oftentimes, God will stir your heart with a problem because he has anointed you to be the solution for that problem. One problem that I identified with our generation is a lack of identity. Everywhere we turn, the world is trying to give us an equation that defines our value. A good example is social media. Most people walk around thinking that the number of likes or followers that they have equals their value. I believe there is a greater equation to prove how important you are, and it is found in what Christ demonstrated on the hill – one man, plus three nails, plus a cross, plus 39 lashes, plus a crown of thorns. That equals our value. That is what the album is about. It is about the hill of Calvary; it is about the proof of our value in Him. Every song expresses our gratitude for what He did for us.

I believe the overwhelming call on my life is to help people experience God in a pure way – in an untainted, untraditional way. The Gospel itself is beautiful, it’s bold, and it’s magnetic without all of the stuff that we have added to it. I think my call is to offer grace and truth like Jesus did, and compel people to give Him their heart. The problem isn’t God, it is oftentimes His representation. I always say at church, ‘Jesus is a surgeon. He doesn’t mind getting dirty. He doesn’t mind doing surgery…He is not intimidated by our condition when we show up.’ The problem isn’t the surgeon, the problem is the person sitting up front asking for your insurance, or making you sit in the waiting room, or giving you the run around. I am not trying to ‘dis’ the church, because I love the church, but I think that is often what we have done. We have made it so hard for people to get back to see the surgeon that they become discouraged and walk out of the hospital.

I am just trying to give people Jesus – pure, beautiful, untainted, real, raw Jesus. I think He is enough.

Excerpted from a 2016 interview for Rolling Out